


Kaleidoscope

by farawatt



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Unreliable Narrator, hickmanvengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-24 00:15:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18158924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farawatt/pseuds/farawatt
Summary: Steve's memories are falling apart.





	Kaleidoscope

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thanks magicasen for beta. And, especially, to Ergos33, who was very patient with my giant mistakes of translation (I learned a lot!).
> 
> Yes, this has an original version in Spanish, in case anyone wants to read both versions, or this, or just the original version ... well.

 

 

At least a week; that week lengthens, so much so that it stops being. The days weigh on and the tongue does not recognize a 'Monday', but a 'Thursday', and 'Sunday' is only a 'sun'. Time does not persist in this room with a low ceiling, worn walls, and cracks where air does not pass through. His little bed is steel, the three mattresses foam, the sheets flannel. Half a meter from his head there’s a wooden Christ, varnished, nailed to the wall by the top of the cross. It is his room in Brooklyn in 1937. However, as with most older replicas, an object lost from the past, like the New Testament under the pillow with its smooth pages; or the false pearls of his mother, between the first and the second mattress; or the scratch of white nail polish on the iron lock of the door.

 

He raises an arm up to his forehead with his hand open so that it obstructs the vision of the centipede walking there. He lets it hover there waiting for the myriapod to jump. The fabric around her wrist is white, unpolluted, and slides down the skin of his forearm. Memory demands a shiver, which he denies. When his arm goes numb, the rain stops, the sun rushes to prevail, the centipede disappears. His throat burns. His chest rises and stays up for a while and then, abruptly, goes down. Resigned, he supports the tingling arm on the left side, seeing the bastard light clean the room of it's shadows accentuating the misery.

 

Under this light, his shirt adopts magenta and blue tones, and, finally, distinguishes the cut in the elbow, the hanging button of a barely skillful thread in a white-yellow tone in with which it must dress. As soon as he becomes aware of the details, the light expands and blinds him. It would seem that it is the Immensity swallowing him. He recites to the Immensity a poem that does not belong to his memory, with a voice that is not his. He will have failed: the light is tortuous, burns the corneas, pulverizes the bodies. It reverses him. Prays. _Oh, Pater noster, qui es in cælis, oh, oh, oh_ , _Páter hemón, ho en tois ouranoís._

 

And God said: Let there be light. And the light gutted his heart and broke his bones. And God saw that the light was evil, and separated the light from the darkness. He separated the light ... the light ... _oh, Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for us_.

 

Death is not what his mother invokes: a meeting, beautiful, without hunger or thirst. _You do not feel anything_ , she whispers, trying to wipe the tears from her oval face with bony and trembling hands, _you will not feel anything, Steve, more than love; you will see something beautiful, as do all compassionate souls_. He records these words and thinks to himself, seeing the sweaty forehead of the only woman in his life, that death has to look like her.

 

_sanctificetur nomen tuum_

 

_hagiastheto to ónomá sou_

 

The wing of the plane breaks the roof; from it water drips on his forehead. He can do nothing to abate the echo of songs inside the snowflakes. He grabs the glass sheets to cover his face and stays very still. The fever puts him to sleep.

 

_The wasp is right!_

 

A bee perches on the snow. Red and gold shadows blur the glass. The figures are contorted. Someone rips the blankets off his skin. Tin Man, now red and gold, with his heart opened in gaps of wires and circuits, approaches, the mask inches from his face. Lift a glove, keeps it close to his cheek. Thor laughs.

 

Bucky points to the plane hanging from the ceiling. _It's gonna--_

 

He screams as he tries to catch him. Listens to footsteps in the hallway. Dips his head in the ocean and waits. Waits. Namor watches him in autumn, with one hand around his neck. The crunch of the grass wakes him up. Coming out of the mud, cleans with only one of his gloves the sand on his face. Walking to an immense tree among other redwoods, crushing the blue and white and red lilies. Climbs. At sixty meters, one foot can not find a place to stand; he slips, scraping his knees. He swings from an especially thick branch, to launch himself towards another mast, balancing on it with a cackling laugh before letting go.  

 

Red wings unfold beautifully against the background sun as Sam reaches for her hand, smiling. _I have you._ This midday sun warms his skin. Laugh, laugh until his stomach hurts. Sam laughs with him. _Find him_. They have lunch together in a bar near Harlem. He has a hamburger, a beer, and the postpone sadness. They play a song by... Halfway through the bottle, it starts to drizzle tarnish the city. The concrete leaves Sam's face stained. They look at the sky: Falcon plans, stealing from the clouds the tar with which they tarnish the city. Picks up a napkin, cleans his hands, his mouth. _This is not what I meant by 'clean it'_. He shakes his wet hair and tries to focus. Bernie turns off the music and his thin arms surround him. _You have the musical taste of my parents._ Delete a couple of fuzzy lines. He turns the lamp towards Bernie, illuminating his curly hair. _Stop_. She is happy living with a guy like him. He wants to tell her that he loves her, that the indecision of his tongue scares him when he wants to tell her that he loves her. She is statically happy at the same time that he counts the days awake. A kiss before. A kiss later. Tickling on the couch, making love on the couch. He is happy and she counts the days awake. Draw Captain America and be pleasantly surprised with the movement. Turn on the TV.

 

Tony is live. Steve squeezes his hands, as he usually does when he sees him, suddenly nervous. Correct his posture and pay attention to the lips of Anthony Stark, Avenger, fascinated by his eloquence. He is wearing a suit. Spits blood. He jokes about his suicide and laughs, because it's fun, it's really fun to kill people and then pretend to be human and feel it. _And adjust your tie_ , the camera comes close to _your_ face, _good day, my fellow americans. This is a man many of you know: Captain America ... who is Captain America? He wraps himself in our nation’s proud  flag, yet, no one in our government is responsible or will take responsibility for---his actions._ He rushes against the device and attacks the body of the 'Maximum leader of the Secret Empire'. The mask vanishes and Captain America, with his immense chest, squeezes out an exclamation. The man, Steve assumes, puts a gun to his temple; specks of blood cross the room before he reaches it. The shot tears down the wall. _Bucky!_ He falls until Captain America does not see a body but a river of bodies. They document this day as the one were he stopped believing in himself. _Return_. Put his palms against his ears. Steve screams in a numb silence. There, in the mountains, covered by frosted glitter with phosphorescent oranges, the mansion is demolished. Rachel kisses his lips, goes over his jaw with the tip of her tongue and puts a dollar into his belt.

 

_Stop, Steve Rogers!_

 

Steve clenches his fist against his chest. Smiles, stomach upset. Tracks the taste of ash. Brushes his teeth; Sharon kisses his shoulder and enters the shower. He needs rest. Because his eyes are burning, because his legs have become stagnate in this journey. The taste has not gone away. Steve turns his shoulders, stretches his arms, asks to share the shower with her, and that gets a murmured ‘yes’. Opens and closes the screen. Presses a giant hand on the flat stomach, kisses the place where Steve thinks she did it on himself, left shoulder, and avoids sobbing. _I love you_. He wants to say it once, despite the explosion behind the crystals. She strokes the hand in the center of his chest– nails with a white stripe on the edges. _It's okay?_ Pass the sponge in the form of a star ( _hilarious!_ ) on the golden body, rub shampoo on the scalp, make her laugh with the touch of her tongue on the right palm of her hand, how relaxed she is, eliminating the greenish water that slides down her breasts and ends on the ground. Steve kisses her forehead and turns to offer his back. Tears. She rubs the handcuffs on her shoulders, smells like lavender, cries against the kiss, adjusts the handcuffs on his wrists, flips her over. The hands, small in comparison, create reddish bubbles in the scales of their uniform, tighten in their stomach and cross in between. His mouth tastes like ash. He coughs. _Oh God ... Steve_...

 

The seam has been broken. Molecular Man tears the shield from his hands. Thor screams. Turns to his right, where Iron Man should be, and in ... _Bucky?_ The clouds that run in the dying sky -terrible sea of blood- are carbon. Church bells ring out from far away. The Winter Soldier loads the rifle in his human arm and moves allowing light to illuminate his face. _Who the hell is Bucky?_

 

 _Who the hell is?_ , he asks. Not Captain America. He makes a life that does not know what to do with himself. He have a vague idea of the kindness speech. He sees himself like a guy of catalog, those who liked to see Janet on the couch, with Tony painting her toenails. The suit is a thin layer between his skin and the weather, tight and smooth, without decorations. It folds in the ripple of the muscles of his arms, in his tense thighs. The chest is exposed in an imperfect heart cut. Now, kneeling and with the man fucking his throat, the cock coming and going, the rough noises of the shock against the humidity, the hands tied behind his back, there's no one, crying from the breeze on his exposed and lubricated ass, wonders who he wants to be. When they finish, he buys the suit from the guy. He goes home, collects a load of the same material, gets scissors and thread, seals the back part and achieves a clean neckline in an inverted triangle for the width of his chest. At the last minute, adds a cloak with what remains. He looks in the mirror. Some boots for his feet. He raises his head and looks into his eyes, catching a glimpse of the green coloration of his skin, his friends behind him, waiting. Iron Man approaches the repulsor to his outstretched hand. Steve is breaking the idea, he has broken the idea. Inspects Tony's teary eyes, frank surprise and then anger. Wants. He wants to laugh, for example. He wants to destroy them. _You do not get what we want_. Hit with the fist.

 

Open the door. Tony wears jeans, a printed T-shirt, a dazzling face of fake happiness. _Can not you fix that, too?_ It is not a good time. France is falling. Throw the shield over Tony's shoulder, knock out the Nazi. Donald breaks the chapel with the hammer on top. War Machine flies over them. _Shellhead?_ There’s nothing. A Nazi cries from the arrow that breaks the thigh. _Shellhead?_

 

Tony's lips are soft against his neck. Fucks Steve softly. The hands leave golden marks on his wrists. Red cheeks, disheveled hair, green eyes half-closed, nose and jaw broken. _What are you waiting for, Steve? Do it, Steven_. Do it. Do it. He ejaculates. Civilians take him by the arms, Tony spits blood and cries. They push him on the courthouse stairs, look at the clean sky, the tormented face of Stephen Strange, the perpetual change of the sky ... _God_...

 

... the Infinity Gauntlet shines in his hand. Anything. Anyone. The possibilities open before him like a map. There is hope on the surface; however, they dig into a cluster of common mistakes. Feel each interconnected thread, see himself and others. Horror, misfortune. He can control it. The sky and the earth. He trusts Tony to do it. Stretch the metal arm and each gem shines terribly against the cracked sky.

 

 _as I am when I'm doing it next to you_ …

 

Tony sleeps on the library carpet. Strike his lip with the pencil and go over the bare skin. Draw a curve in the neck area, decisively, seconds of suspense. Shades. The tip of the index finger goes over into the tense muscles; the delicate silver and gold carapace; the black eyes. Stark does not flutter in the snow that covers him. _You don’t know what you are doing_. Mutters soft songs. _I loved you_. Magenta curtains. Scrape the carbon at the edges.

 

Bluish light. Squeeze the sketch to his chest. The illuminated face of autumn wrinkles in the corners. Mom cries in the next room. His mom's crying is just a breeze from the door. He has read this poem, he recites it with an aspiration to horror. He has lied himself. Avoid perishing in his midnight story. What he does is not cry out loud; _to help yourself is an absurdity_ . The pale blue eyes are out of focus. Dad has returned. His mom's cry is a distant warning of the first blow of the belt buckle, the leash that gave way a while ago and now falls to pieces on the bed. His face burns and his clothes are consuming. He clenches his jaw, confronts Dad, with blue eyes pleading, tearful, and greasy black hair. Against his anger, the abnormal love. _You don't understand. If you could be inside my skin ... if you could feel what I’m feeling, you’d know ..._

 

 _I’ve got to drink_.

 

Another blow, another excuse, a blink.

 

_Oh, Pater noster, qui es in cælis._

 

Mom protects him from the scourge with her bare back.

 

_Pater hemón, ho en tois ouranoís._

 

They turn on the television in the living room next to his room. Bluish flames light the darkness. Mom, kneeling in her pool of fluctuating blood, rubs ointment on her broken eyebrow. _I'm dying_. Out there they sing.

 

_Just because I presumin’_

 

_Shit!_

 

_That I could be kind of human_

 

_What is happening? What is it…?_

 

_If I only had a heart_

 

_I can not stop it._

 

_I hear a heartbeat_

 

_It's bleeding, oh god ... take off your fucking hands…_

 

_How sweet!_

 

_Just to register emotion._

 

_Jealousy, devotion_

 

Laughs. Blood drips from his nose and freezes before touching the ground.

 

_and really feel the part_

 

_You're killing him!_

 

_I could stay young and chipper_

 

_... a stroke ... a ..._

 

_and I’d lock it with a zipper_

 

_If I only had a heart_

 

Stephen!

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
